A month into his rookie year with the 1963 Reds, Pete Rose was struggling to hold on to his job. Then he played the Cardinals for the first time and got his career back on track.
Making a leap from the Class A level of the minors to the big leagues, Rose won the starting second base spot with the Reds at 1963 spring training. Once the season began, the player who would become baseball’s all-time hits king looked feeble at the plate.
Rose was batting .158 for the season when the Reds opened a four-game series against the Cardinals on May 3, 1963, at Cincinnati. Cardinals pitching turned out to be the remedy for Rose’s slump. He produced seven hits in 14 at-bats and drew five walks in the four games. He also totaled four RBI and scored three times, helping the Reds win three of the four.
After that, Rose thrived and went on to win the 1963 National League Rookie of the Year Award. The switch-hitter eventually totaled 4,256 career hits.
The Cincinnati Kid
A Cincinnati native, Rose was 19 when scout Buzz Boyle signed him for the Reds. Boyle said most clubs overlooked Rose because he only weighed 150 pounds in high school. “Knowing his family and seeing the kid and knowing his ambition, I felt he was well worth the chance,” Boyle told the Cincinnati Enquirer. “I don’t think he can be a mediocre player.”
Though he wasn’t on the Reds’ 40-man roster, Rose was invited to their Tampa spring training camp for a look in 1963 after hitting .330 for manager Dave Bristol’s Class A Macon (Ga.) Peaches the year before.
Don Blasingame, a former Cardinal who hit .281 for Cincinnati in 1962, was the Reds’ incumbent second baseman. Blasingame had a strong connection with Reds manager Fred Hutchinson. He was the second baseman when Hutchinson managed the Cardinals (1956-58) and again when Hutchinson led the Reds to a National League pennant in 1961.
Conventional wisdom had Rose ticketed to start the 1963 season at Class AAA San Diego but he took advantage of the spring training invitation with the Reds.
“The most exciting young ballplayer in the Cincinnati camp this spring is Pete Rose,” Si Burick of the Dayton Daily News proclaimed. “He gives the club added speed, enthusiasm, drive. He wants to play. Hutchinson has become so fond of the youngster, he doesn’t want to let him out of his sight.”
Hutchinson said to the Cincinnati Enquirer, “You’ve got to like a kid like Rose. He’s the winning type of player that a manager looks for.”
Reds third baseman Gene Freese told the newspaper, “Pete is another Nellie Fox, with power.” (Fox, a future Hall of Famer, was the all-star second baseman for the White Sox.)
Before a spring training game, Hutchinson and Phillies manager Gene Mauch watched Rose take his cuts in the batting cage. According to Si Burick, Hutchinson said to Mauch, “This boy came to play. He runs to first when he draws a walk and we’ve timed him going down to first on a pass in 4.2 seconds.”
The newspaper noted Rose was “nicknamed Charlie Hustle by his teammates.”
Asked by Si Burick why he ran hard to first base when issued a walk, Rose replied, “When I was a little kid, my dad took me to (Cincinnati’s) Crosley Field to see the Reds play the Cardinals. I saw (Enos) Country Slaughter run to first on a walk and I figured if it was good enough for him it was good enough for me.”
Bumpy beginning
As spring training neared an end, Hutchinson sought the advice of his coaches on whether Rose should be the Reds’ second baseman. According to Ritter Collett of the Dayton Journal Herald, Hutchinson asked them, “Do any of you think we’d hurt our chances by giving him a trial? Is there any of you who feels he hasn’t earned it?”
The answers to both were no.
Si Burick reported that on the day before the Reds’ season opener, Blasingame shook hands with Rose and said, “Kid, good luck. You’ve got a chance to make a lot of money in this game. Don’t do anything foolish to waste your chance.”
Rose told Burick, “You have to respect him for that.”
In the Reds’ season opener at home against the Pirates, Rose, batting second, was the first Cincinnati player to reach base (on a four-pitch walk from Earl Francis) and the first to score (on Frank Robinson’s home run). He helped turn three double plays. Rose also struck out looking and booted a routine grounder. In explaining the error, Rose told the Dayton Daily News, “I was still cussing myself for looking at that (third) strike. I wasn’t thinking about my job in the field.”
Hutchinson said to the newspaper, “He’ll learn that all this is part of the game … If you brood about a mistake and it leads to another mistake, you can’t make it in this game.”
Asked whether he was nervous in his debut, Rose replied to the Dayton Journal Herald, “Sure, I was nervous, but not scared. There’s a difference.” Boxscore
Hutchinson started Rose in the first six games (he batted .130), then benched him for Blasingame. As the Reds headed on a trip to Los Angeles and San Francisco, there was speculation Rose “probably will be dropped off at San Diego” to join the farm club there, the Journal Herald reported.
Instead, after Blasingame made eight consecutive starts at second and batted .160, Hutchinson restored Rose to the starting lineup on April 27.
Power hitter
When the first-place Cardinals (15-7) arrived in Cincinnati on May 3 for a weekend series with the ninth-place Reds (7-11), Rose was in a funk. He had one hit in 15 at-bats since regaining his starting status and was “perilously close to a return to the minors,” according to the Dayton Daily News.
The task didn’t figure to get any easier against the Cardinals’ Game 1 pitcher, Ernie Broglio. He was 3-0, and two of the wins were shutouts.
In his first at-bat against Broglio, Rose grounded out, but the next two turns at the plate were spectacular. Rose drove a Broglio pitch over the head of George Altman in right for a triple. Then he slammed a Broglio fastball for a two-run home run, “a prodigious blast that soared high over the center field wall,” the Daily News reported.
The homer, RBI and multi-hit game all were firsts for Rose as a big leaguer.
(According to the Daily News, after the home run, Rose crowed, “Sixty more and I tie [Roger] Maris.” Overhearing the remark, Hutchinson barked, “Don’t let that homer give you the idea you’re a slugger.”)
Facing Diomedes Olivo, 44, in the ninth, Rose, 22, grounded to short and nearly beat the throw to first. According to the Daily News, the brash rookie turned to umpire Jocko Conlan, 63, and said, “I need those close ones, Jocko. I’m only hitting .170.” Conlan replied, “I don’t care if you’re hitting .470. You’re still out.” Boxscore
Going against Gibson
In Game 2 of the series, Rose was perfect, with two singles and three walks in five plate appearances. He had a single and two walks against starter Bob Gibson, and a single and a walk versus Ed Bauta.
Rose’s one-out walk against Gibson in the third ignited a four-run outburst from the Reds, who won, 6-0, for the second day in a row. Boxscore
In his 1994 book “Stranger to the Game,” Gibson said, “For a singles and doubles hitter, Pete Rose carried himself with a big man’s swagger and could give a pitcher a hard time just through his sheer will to make something happen.”
(Gibson versus Rose was the ultimate in competitiveness and intensity. For his career against Gibson, Rose had a .307 batting average and .385 on-base percentage, with 35 hits, 12 walks and three hit by pitches. In 1967, Gibson and Rose were involved in a brawl. Another time, Gibson said in his autobiography, “I thought for sure I was getting to Pete Rose when I knocked him down and he got up and spit at me. When he got back to the dugout, though, I saw [manager] Sparky Anderson say something to him. I heard later Sparky advised Rose never to show me up.”)
On the way
The series ended with a Sunday doubleheader. Rose had two walks (one each against Ray Sadecki and Ron Taylor) in the opener, a 5-4 Reds triumph, and three hits (two versus Curt Simmons and one against Bobby Shantz) with two RBI in the finale, a 7-4 victory for the Cardinals. Boxscore and Boxscore
Steadied by his performances against the Cardinals, Rose produced consistently the remainder of his rookie season. On May 24, Hutchinson moved him into the leadoff spot and kept him there. In July, Blasingame was dealt to the Senators.
Rose played in 157 games for the 1963 Reds, batted . 273 and led the team in runs scored (101). He also ranked second on the club in hits (170), doubles (25), triples (nine) and walks (55).
Rose remained a thorn against Cardinals pitching. In 18 games against St. Louis in 1963, Rose had a .373 batting mark and a .435 on-base percentage. He had more hits (28) and more RBI (eight) versus the Cardinals than he did against any other club that year.
In nine games at St. Louis in 1963, Rose hit .419. Before the last of those games, the season finale, Rose shook hands with Stan Musial near the batting cage. Playing the final game of his career, Musial smacked two singles, both past Rose at second and into right field. Musial’s 3,630 hits were the National League record until Rose broke the mark 18 years later in 1981. Boxscore
Rose, who went 3-for-6 with a walk in Musial’s last game, finished his career with a .299 batting mark versus the Cardinals. Following the 1978 season, after he became a free agent and left the Reds, Rose considered an offer from the Cardinals but opted to sign instead with the Phillies.
RetroSimba 
If only he had taken Blasingame’s advice about not doing anything stupid.
I’m glad you picked up on that, Ken. You are so right.
Another like that: After seeing Pete Rose play early in 1963 spring training, the Dayton Daily News reported, “Rose is a born hustler whose urge to succeed is spelled out in every move he makes.” The reference was to his performance on the field, but the born hustler part proved true in every other way as well.
It goes without saying that it’s too bad that Pete Rose ruined his career and legacy. Still though, as a baseball player, the numbers he produced on the diamond from 1963 to 1982 can only be accomplished by someone worthy of being called one of the greatest to ever play the game. That’s Pete Rose the baseball player.
After his big-league debut in the 1963 season opener, the Cincinnati Enquirer noted, “If Pete Rose doesn’t make it big in the major leagues, a lot of people will be surprised _ including Pete Rose. He thinks he’s good, says he’s good and has the minor-league credentials to support him.”
A month later, after his successful series against the Cardinals, the Enquirer’s Lou Smith reported that “several are referring to the likeable Rose as another Frankie Frisch.”
On July 25, 1977, at St. Louis, Rose got his 2,881st career hit, an all-time record for a switch hitter. The record hit (a single versus Pete Falcone) broke the mark held by Frankie Frisch.
“Charlie Hustle” was actually a derogatory term because as everyone knows, baseball players like to “Cadillac” on occasion because of the long season. A guy who plays like his hair is on fire makes everyone else look bad.
In his memoir, “Cincinnati Seasons,” Earl Lawson, who covered the Reds for many years for The Cincinnati Post, wrote, “Only two people in the Reds’ camp that spring figured Rose had a chance to open the 1963 season in Cincinnati. Rose was one. Reds manager Fred Hutchinson was the other.”
Lawson also wrote, “Hutchinson’s decision to go with Rose in the season’s opener wasn’t a popular one among Reds players … I was sitting in the cocktail lounge at Tampa’s Causeway Inn with seven or eight players shortly before the Reds broke camp that spring. Handing each a piece of paper, I asked them to jot down the names of the 25 players they thought would open the season with the Reds. Only one player, Don Blasingame, listed Rose’s name. There were startled looks on the faces of the players when I told them I was betting that Rose would not only be on the roster, but that he would be in the lineup Opening Day.”
In the book “We Played the Game,” Reds pitcher Jim O’Toole recalled rookie Pete Rose: “Rose was a cocky guy but not outspoken. Nobody really cared for him much off the field. I was tough on him. I didn’t like that he talked like a hillbilly. He wasn’t very educated … His constant hustle annoyed people.”
I was surprised to see that Rose walked over 100 times only once in his career. I guess I have that image of him sprinting down to first after a walk stuck in my mind. I like the continuity of him revealing that Enos Slaughter inspired him to do that and go figure, Slaughter never walked over 100 times.
It’s great research on your part to discover what kicked off Roses’s career, got it going in the right direction which makes it kind of like an anniversary to celebrate.
I’m gonna thing a long time about Pete’s quote – “Sure, I was nervous, but not scared. There’s a difference.” It’s something I often confuse which results in me not participating in an activity.
After watching Pete Rose streak to the bag after being given a walk in his debut game in 1963, the Cincinnati Enquirer noted, “He ran to first base with the vigor of a man trying to beat out a bunt.”
Good note, Steve, on Rose only once reaching 100 walks in a season. Yet, he scored more than 100 runs 10 times in his career. The only players with more career runs scored than Rose (2,165) are Rickey Henderson (2,295), Ty Cobb (2,245), Barry Bonds (2,227), Hank Aaron (2,174) and Babe Ruth (2,174), according to baseball-reference.com. Pretty cool, eh?, that Aaron and Ruth each had the exact same number of runs scored.
Glad you picked up on the distinction between nervous and scared. I liked that, too. It’s pretty impressive Pete Rose understood that as a raw rookie.
A wonderful fact that Ruth and Aaron scored the same amount of runs. Thanks for sharing that Mark. I’m reminded of their birthdays being one day after the other.